National Novel Writing Month begins Nov. 1. If you’ve ever dreamed of writing a novel, now’s the time. If you stick to the plan, you can write a 50,000-word novel by Nov. 30. 

Folks, nobody says it has to be good. But if you get started, at least you’ll know you can do it. Don’t worry about plot or theme or anything else. You can work on that in subsequent drafts. 

Just write. 

A new Tamara Hayle mystery by Valerie Wilson Wesley will hit bookshelves in late January. This one will be called Of Blood and Sorrow.

I’m almost finished with that new Walter Mosley, so a review should be up soon.  

Also, got an e-mail from Amazon that my copy of the new Beverly Jenkins, Deadly Sexy, is on its way.  

Writer Deatri King-Bey reminds me that the next Romance Slam Jam Conference, a gathering of black romance writers and readers, will be April 30 to May 4 next year in Chicago.     

Why yes, I have already started scheming about getting there. How did you know? 

British fiction writer Josephine Cox is wringing her hands in worry that fiction like hers is to blame for high divorce rates and rising numbers of young single women: 

Often it appears that the lovers in novels don’t have to work at relationships — it is frequently a meeting of soulmates, love at first sight or a long-burning childhood friendship which erupts into passion.

Books invariably end as our happy couples often walk off into the distance, hand in hand.They don’t continue through the sleep deprivation of a young family, the mounting bills, then the spreading waistlines of middle age and the first grey hairs 

Uh, lady, it’s escapist fiction. Most of us have enough of a grip on reality to make the distinction between fiction and real life. 

Other stuff – Check it: A piece in the Lancet about the characters in medical romance. 

…but she’s a genre (romance) novelist and this certainly deserves some attention:  Romance  novelist Nora Roberts won the Quill Book of the Year Award last night. She reportedly celebrated her win with a hearty “Romance rocks!” while accepting the award.

If you’re among the people buying Karrine Steffans’ new book (or her last one, for that matter), stop it. Right. Now. 

I have been mystified by the changes to the New York Times best sellers list(s) in recent weeks. In today’s Times, public editor Clark Hoyt tries to explain.

I still don’t entirely understand how the lists are put together (I want the trade fiction and mass-market fiction lists combined), but now I do get why some of the changes were made.

And in case you’re keeping track, the only black authors on the main best sellers lists are Clarence Thomas, Karrine Steffans and Tony Dungy, all of whom wrote nonfictional tomes.

Francis Ray’s new romance, Only You, is out. It’s the continuation of the Grayson family series. This time, our heroine and hero are real-estate agent and clotheshorse Sierra Grayson and mysterious businessman Blade Navarone. I haven’t gotten to it yet — it’s on the To Be Reviewed list — but I will. I promise.

An interview with Francis Ray wherein she talks about her day job, marriage and how she gets her ideas:

• A ‘hairstorian’ talks about black women’s hair.
• Horror writer Brandon Massey will be at two discussions/signings in Georgia this weekend.
• Why do those “who dream of what the future will be like, within the science fiction realm at least…. erase, minimize or demonize” the existence of people of African descent when they envision future worlds? Basically, because our present isn’t promising. But we can change that.
• Eso Won Books, a black-owned bookstore in Los Angeles, is in trouble. Do what you can, folks.
• An interview with Carole McDonnell, author of Wind Follower, which is on my To Be Reviewed list.
• In case you hadn’t heard that Terry McMillan had called out Simon & Schuster for publishing ghetto literature. I still cringe when I think about that situation she had with her (now ex-?) husband and the indelicate way in which it still is playing out on the public stage, but McMillan is right about this one. I love escapism in my novels, but those books bug me. It upsets me that so many people are reading these things that this is the market publishers think is most profitable for them now. Publishers really should know better.
• Think you’ve got a book in you? Don’t forget that NaNoWriMo begins in just a couple of weeks.
• An interview with Cecil Washington, speculative-fiction writer and publisher of Creative Brother’s Sci-Fi Magazine.
• Vote in All About Romance’s Top 100 Romances poll.